After 10 years in prison, Hamilton (Klaus Kinski) swears revenge to those who betrayed him. The Showdown actually begins after only 30 minutes. After the introduction of the characters, the whole film plays during the stormy night of revenge. The most remarkable thing about this film is Margheriti's unusual visual interpretation. It lets this Western look like a horror film, with typical small effects like windows suddenly opening, curtains blowing, or birds screaming when the name Hamilton is called. Kinski's appearances have got a kind of supernatural touch, he seems to appear or disappear like a ghost. Nevertheless a natural explanation (darkness, caves, a sandstorm) is always provided. The darkest Western ever made takes place at night for two thirds of its running time. And as a stark contrast, it ends in a bright mirror room. Kinski usually played one of the bounty hunters in his spaghetti westerns. In this case, he was cast as the hero (well, anti-hero) which turned out to be a clever move. Extraordinary for the genre!

Gary Hamilton (Klaus Kinski!) is released from ten years of hard labor with a pardon for a crime he didn't commit, so he does what any insane character played by Kinski would do. He sets out to kill everyone who ever did him wrong.

This movie comes from director Antonio Margheriti, who we all know from films like War of the Planets, Death Rage and oh yes, there it is, Yor Hunter from the Future.

Kinski wants Acombar, his former friend who set him up, dead. He has to go through the man's son (Antonio Cantafora, Baron Blood) to do it, as well as the Acombar's wife Maria, who was once his lover. He's helped by the people of the town who hate his enemy, as well as his knowledge of the Native American burial grounds.

This is less Western than horror film, with Kinski's character nearly a ghost, continually followed by gusts of winds and tolling bells as he returns to get his bloody vengeance.

While there are similarities to another Margheriti film Vengeance, this is very nearly a remake of Salvatore Rosso's A Stranger in Paso Bravo, which was made just a year before. This one, however, is unafraid to let the gruesome side of violence be seen.

The original story for both was written by Eduardo Manzanos Brochero, but the screenwriter for this was Giovanni Addessi, who also produced the movie.

Klaus Kinski is one of the few B list performers I'll go out of my way to see, and this Euro-West feature is a good example of his sinister presence on screen. You'll generally catch him as a villain since he so naturally looks the part, though in "And God Said to Cain' he portrays an anti-hero out for revenge against the man who framed him for a gold robbery during the Civil war. The film is a good one if you stay with the basic premise, but it's sure tough to follow the action as most, probably three quarters of the picture takes place at night. Complicating matters further, Kinski's character, Gary Hamilton, traverses the underground caves of Santa Maria while on his mission of revenge. A conveniently conceived tornado also hits town to lend a further atmospheric dimension to the story, though that doesn't amount to much more than a big wind.

The picture provides a couple of cool elements I haven't seen in a Western before, much less the spaghetti variety. The dripping water in the cave in an early scene seemed to provide a natural musical accompaniment to the movements on screen just before Hamilton took out his first victim. Later on, I thought it was pretty clever the way Hamilton made a bell ringer out of Miguel, if you know what I mean.

I'm certainly not as well versed on the genre as many of the other posters on this board, and I usually learn a lot about a film by reading what others have to say. What I found most interesting about this film's background was the horror influence inspired by it's director Antonio Margheriti. In the picture, those elements are used to good effect to enhance and build tension in the story. The outcome itself is fairly predictable, so it's up to the ride that gets you there to be as entertaining as possible.